At a financial summit -- the Ira
Sohn Investment Research Conference -- in New York on
Wednesday, David Einhorn, an influential hedge fund star and manager of a fund
at Greenlight Capital, delivered harsh words for Microsoft's boisterous chief.

He commented, "[G]ive someone else a chance.
His [Ballmer's] continued presence is the biggest overhang on
Microsoft's stock."

Mr. Einhorn has vested interest in the company's success. He recently
executed a large purchase of the company's stock. His firm now owns 9
million shares, or about 0.11 percent of the company's total shares.

While some properties like the Xbox console and the Windows 7 operating system
have been well received and sold great, investors have largely focused on the
company's misses. CNN Money last year carried a scathing
editorial in which it suggested that Microsoft was "dying".

Last year Microsoft was notably passed in market cap by a familiar
old foe -- Apple, Inc. (AAPL).
While many jeered at this news, Apple has since somewhat silenced critics
by passing Microsoft on quarterly profits. On Tuesday further concerns
were raised when lumbering old giant International Business Machines Corp. (IBM)
passed Microsoft in market cap for the first time in decades.

After years on top of the tech industry in stock, revenue, and profits,
Microsoft is finding itself fading from the race. Does that require a
major leadership shift? Some argue that it does.

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Right, but Google, Apple, Intel, and Oracle have the bright kids now. I had a friend out of engineering school (Rose-Hulman) trying to get a job at MS for years, he even volunteered relocating from Kirkland to Redmond with his girlfriend (she brought him out to Kirkland after they graduated). MS gave him two interviews with no follow ups. Now he works at Intel and lives in Portland, Oregon.

Microsoft is sucking the talent.

And damn this coffee is delicous! I'm going to smack that new intern on the ass next time she toots by.

Please for the love of god stop making blind statements based on the experience of a friend.

MS has and still poaches the best of the best computer engineering students (and foreign workers) each year. Not saying others don't either, but you are kidding youreslf if you think 'Google, Apple, Intel, and Oracle have the bright kids now'

Furthermore, when you combine hardware companies and software companies together in the same blanket statement, you lose all credibility.

Microsoft is unmatched in terms of software development. While others such as Google are catching up, MS has no shortage of bright individuals, that's for sure.. (To give you an idea how much bigger MS is, they have over 90 thousand employees, while Google has around 1/4 that number)

Microsoft's Server products are fantastic and rightfully sell by the truck load. If you look at the Windows Phone 7 development suite, it is likewise brilliantly executed, so the problem is that MS is not properly communicating this to their target market or their target market has already stopped listening.

What MS really falls down on is the consumer market or anything where they market direct to the consumer. Even the Xbox (a rare hit) is more its own brand than a bona-fide MS brand. The danger is that the brand becomes toxic to consumers due to too many failures and the feeling that MS is not innovating anymore, they are following and that other companies can do the same things better and more appealingly.

Again, the true problem here is not today, it is 5 years in the future as their market share is eroded, most probably because the vast majority of their public traditional customers transition to devices which don't run windows/office etc. Microsoft desperately need a clear vision in this arena or they are simply acting defensively and burning money for no return. The first thing they should do is develop Office (and SharePoint integration) for other Operating Systems or market their own OS's with that integration far more persuasively. Whining that "people like the OS once they use it" does not explain the poor sales or the fact that so few people are even willing to try it.